In this article, we’re going to go over our top summer camp marketing ideas for increasing enrollment and give you some practical tips that you can put to use today.
We’ll cover the following summer camp marketing ideas:
✅ Email Marketing
⭐ Registrations not open yet? Add a reminder form
✅ Early bird-discount
✅ Social Media
⭐ End of camp surveys
✅ Client Referrals
✅ Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
⭐ SMS Marketing for Summer Camps
✅ Testimonials & online reviews
✅ Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads
✅ Open House and Free Camp Tour
✅ Improve Online Registration Process
⭐ AI (ChatGPT) to market your summer camp
✅ More ways to Market your Summer Camp
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✅ Indicates more traditional summer camp marketing ideas. We add a modern twist so that even seasoned camp owners can learn something new.
⭐ Indicates more unconventional summer camp marketing strategies. These are for experienced summer camp owners, but offer new marketing ideas for established summer camps.
📌 Pro Tip: These are tips for both established and new summer camps looking to improve their digital marketing and better reach their target audience.
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About the author: I’m Olivier, co-founder of Activity Messenger, a modern Summer camp management software. I also run a multi-franchise business dedicated to introducing sports to children ages 2-9 with over 100 employees. Over the past decade, I’ve spent over $200,000 on Facebook and Google ads, sent hundreds of email marketing campaigns and tried dozen of summer camp marketing ideas, all aimed at increasing enrollment in summer programs.
You may be surprised that we ranked this so high, but we truly see it as the #1 overlooked opportunity for summer camps.
Here’s the takeaway:
At Activity Messenger, I see countless summer camps using email marketing campaigns to remind previous campers to sign up for a summer program.
Which is fantastic.
However, a significant number of these campaigns only target existing or past campers.
More importantly, many camps don’t use a mailing list and opt-in’s as a marketing strategy on their website. This allows potential customers to sign up for their newsletter.
At Sportball, when we added a newsletter subscription option, we were surprised at the number of potential customers who signed up to receive updates on upcoming summer programs.
Here’s why:
In digital marketing, it’s all too common to receive a marketing email promoting the exact summer camp you just enrolled in just a few days after your registration.
That can be frustrating enough to make you want to unsubscribe, right?
And that’s exactly what was happening at Sportball.
✅ The unsubscribe rate significantly decreased
✅ Open rates increased
✅ Registrations went up
Families and campers now receive emails that are relevant to their registration history.
Parents, who are often juggling multiple schedules really appreciate this!
There are a few key strategies to keep in mind when communicating with potential clients for your summer camp.
Send a welcome email. This way, they can have further interaction with you when they are most interested. We’ve had success adding:
This engages camp prospects instead of just thanking them for joining our email blast. A great way to start building a successful summer camp.
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📌 Pro Tip: Many parents come to our site from an ad or a search. In many cases, their child is too young or they are simply not available for the summer program. These are potential campers who want you to contact them next summer and helps you build a pipeline of potential customers.
Last summer I was trying to enroll my oldest in a summer camp. I visited a summer camp website, ready to sign up, but registration hadn’t started yet. Days went by, and I finally ended up at a competitor’s camp, and my son loved it.
The original camp that opened registration later lost not just one child’s enrollment, but potentially all three of my children’s enrollments. And for multiple summers.
This story illustrates a critical point for summer camps: timing can be the difference between a successfull summer camp and a camp that struggles.
Here are the actionable insights for summer camps:
One of the most effective marketing strategies that propelled our summer programs to seven figures in revenue was surprisingly straightforward.
We start taking registrations as early as possible, well ahead of our competitors.
We also introduce early bird discounts to incentivize early sign-ups and helps boosts our cash flow and simplifies staff planning.
As a result, we gain better insights for fine-tuning our advertising spend, adding more camp options when needed, or even varying our offerings to maximize revenue.
📌 Pro Tip: We’ve been using this marketing strategy for years, and we’re usually 25 to 30 percent enrolled before most of our competitors have even started. And because I know which summer programs need more visibility, I can better target my digital marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing campaigns to where we have more openings.
Conducting a summer camper survey can provide deep insight into you camp experience and areas where you can improve.
With Activity Messenger, you can set up an automated email to go out 2-3 days before the last day of camp.
How to turn your end-of-session email into a digital marketing strategy
The power of trust and credibility that comes with personal referrals makes them an incredibly effective summer camp marketing strategy.
Much like how a friend’s suggestion for a great restaurant carries weight, people place similar trust in recommendations for camps from their friends and family.
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📌 Pro Tip: You’ll want to make it easy for past campers to recommend you to others. Have easy ways for them to share and be rewarded for bringing others to your camp, such as flyers, social media posts, and personalized certificates. Your clients do the work for you. And when they refer friends and family, they are more likely to sign back up next summer.
Leveraging search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful strategy for boosting the online visibility. By optimizing your website and creating engaging content, you can improve your search engine rankings and position your camp as a leader in your community.
Understanding SEO:
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, involves enhancing your website to appear higher in search engine results like Google, to increase the visibility to new families.
Actionable Insights for Content:
Boosting SEO with Content:
Effective content can significantly enhance your SEO by engaging visitors and keeping them longer on your site.
Actionable Insights for Content SEO:
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📌 Pro Tip: Prioritize long-tail keywords and local search terms to improve your ranking quickly before your site builds more authority on Google.
Summer camps benefit greatly from using bulk SMS as a key communication tool. Mass texting allows camp directors to reach parents and ensure that camp updates, special events, and registration details are seen immediately.
Bulk SMS provides a direct line to families, making sure important notifications and promotions are seen on time.
Sending text messages to former campers can effectively reignite their interest in returning to your camp.
By incorporating mass SMS into your camp communication strategy, you can dramatically improve outreach effectiveness, family engagement, and ultimately enrollment and retention.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is when you pay each time a user clicks on one of your online ads. This allows your camp to rank highly in Google search results for targeted phrases like ‘summer camps for kids’ or ‘camps near me’.
PPC campaigns can position the link to your camp’s website at the top of the search engine results pages. This ensures a higher level of visibility to potential attendees who are actively searching for camps.
PPC advertising provides immediate visibility, which is critical for new or competitive camps, and bypasses the lengthy process required to achieve high organic search rankings.
By combining PPC with a strategic approach to social media, summer camps can quickly increase enrollment, expand their reach to new families and significantly increase their market presence.
You can’t overlook the power of an open house and free camp tours as one of the best summer camp marketing strategies. It gives prospective campers and their families a risk-free opportunity to experience firsthand the environment and activities your camp offers. It’s an engaging way to introduce new campers to your camp, allowing them to meet the team and have their questions answered directly.
By incorporating these summer camp marketing ideas, you can effectively attract new campers and reassure and engage parents with a personalized experience.
Improving the online registration process on your summer camp website can improve the customer experience. Families now expect a seamless experience with a mobile-first and customer-centric registration process.
1. Mobile-First Approach: Make sure that your registration form is easy to navigate on mobile devices. Simplify the process, minimize text entry, and make visuals clear and functional on smaller screens.
2. Customer-Centric Registration Forms: Use conditional logic in your forms to reduce clutter and unnecessary questions. This approach guides users through a customized registration experience, displaying only relevant fields based on previous answers.
3. Offer Payment Options: Integrate various payment options such as such as credit cards, wire transfers, and payment plans. Clearly communicate payment terms and conditions to avoid confusion.
4. Confirmation Email: Make sure your confirmation emails are comprehensive, including details such as session dates and times, payment confirmation, and next steps. Post-purchase communication is an important part of the online registration process and can help preventing buyer’s remorse.
5. Summer Camp Website: Embed the registration form directly on your site. Keeping potential registrants on your website throughout the registration process maintains brand consistency and trust.
6. Waitlist Management: Implement automated waitlist systems that notify prospects immediately when openings occur. Personalize notifications to maintain increase the likelihood of conversion when a spot opens up.
By following these guidelines, you can streamline your summer camp registration process to make it more efficient, enjoyable and effective, increasing camper satisfaction and enrollment.
📌 Pro Tip: A form that is difficult to navigate can turn off potential registrants. By focusing on the user experience, you can streamline the path from interest to enrollment. Flexibility in payment methods can accommodate a wider range of customers, from those willing to pay in full to those who prefer installment plans.
You can dramatically increase efficiency, personalization, and engagement by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into your summer camp marketing strategies.
AI-Generated Marketing Material:
Social Media Marketing:
AI-Driven Email Campaigns:
Camps can achieve more personalized communications, create content more efficiently, and ultimately build stronger connections with prospective and current campers by effectively incorporating AI into their marketing strategies.
Branded merchandise is an excellent strategy for increasing visibility and fostering a sense of community by turning your campers into ambassadors for your summer camp.
This article was focused on how Activity Messenger can you market your Summer Camp. But the platform can do much more for your dance studio.
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4- Social Media Marketing
Don’t hesitate to invest in social media marketing. Especially if you have open spots available at your camp.
Facebook and Instagram ads are an excellent way to promote your summer camps.
Spending a modest amount each day can significantly increase traffic to your website.
Many believe that posting on their business profile is enough. However, with organic reach declining sharply in recent years, paid advertising is becoming increasingly important.
I typically create one set of ads per session. This approach is less time consuming than ongoing social media management and provides better results and broader reach.
The process is simple: set up an image or video ad, target it to a few miles/kilometers around your camp location, allocate a daily budget of a few dollars, and launch.
This modest ad spend can prevent empty spots in your camps and fill them quickly. Such a strategic investment can significantly increase your profit margins, as each additional camper is essentially pure profit.
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📌 Pro Tip: Over a 7-day period, I usually see a cost of $7 to $10 per enrollment through Facebook ads, which is quite effective. However, this is just the beginning of the overall value. Many people register without directly clicking on the ad or after the initial 7-day period has passed. Additionally, a notable percentage of people subscribe to our newsletter, providing us with opportunities for ongoing engagement.